Éloge de l’ombre : le noir et la matière dans la photographie japonaise contemporaine, Musée Soulages, Rodez, 20 May 2026

On the occasion of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s solo exhibition Reprendre la mélodie (Taking up the Melody) at the Musée Soulages in Rodez, France, I gave a talk entitled “In Praise of Shadows: On Blackness and Materiality in Japanese Photography”. The talk explored the development of Japanese photography since the postwar years, Sugimoto’s formative years, and the characteristic traits of the photography of this period. Based on this context, I considered Sugimoto’s unique artistic trajectory, having studied and made a career as an artist based in New York, and his relationship to the label “Japanese photographer”.